The Fall Guy

by Joe Barry

  © Phocion Publishing 2019, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

  Publisher’s Note

  Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

  We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

  THE FALL GUY

  By

  JOE BARRY

  The Fall Guy was originally published in 1945 by Mystery House, New York.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Contents

  TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

  1 5

  2 9

  3 17

  4 24

  5 33

  6 38

  7 44

  8 51

  9 58

  10 65

  11 73

  12 77

  13 81

  14 87

  15 93

  16 101

  17 106

  18 112

  19 117

  20 125

  21 129

  REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 131

  1

  “No,” said Rush Henry. “No, Mr. Germaine. I’m afraid you’ve been misinformed .about me. This isn’t the kind of work I do.”

  Paul Joseph St. John Germaine frowned, drawing shaggy gray brows into a straight line above cold blue eyes. “I haven’t been misinformed, Mr. Henry. I never am.” He was stating a fact. “It is my understanding that you will take any case, if it interests you and the money offered is sufficient. If your attitude is calculated to hold me up for more money, let us recognize it at once. I’ll stand a certain amount of holding up in this case.”

  Rush smiled but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Perhaps the mistake is on my part. It didn’t seem logical that you would pay my price for an elementary job of shadowing. It isn’t the kind of work I like to do. So, as you say, I’ll hold you up.”

  “Agreed. Name your price.”

  “My usual rates are fifty dollars a day and expenses. It’ll cost you double.”

  “When can you start?”

  “Just as soon as you tell me why you are so anxious to have your daughter followed.”

  “Let me give you a little background, Henry.” Germaine pressed a button on his desk and almost immediately a door behind him opened noiselessly. An ancient body encased in butler’s livery entered the room. “Bring Mr. Henry a drink, Horace. What will you have, Henry? This is going to take a little time.”

  “Scotch and water,” Rush said.

  The old man left and Germaine drummed the desk with his fingers, obviously marshaling his thoughts, waiting for the servant’s return. Rush watched the second hand of the electric clock run its course three times as he waited, wondering what could lead this aging autocrat to bare his family skeleton to a private detective. Rush would have expected him to bury his own dead.

  The drink was served on a silver tray and Rush tasted it. The grin he gave Horace reached his eyes. Horace understood about drinks. This was nearly as good as the straight rye he would rather have had. He took a long swallow and set the glass on the tray, raising questioning eyes to Germaine. The older man watched his fingers perform a final drumroll on the desk top and raised his head with a snap of decision.

  “I presume that you will keep whatever I have to say, in the utmost confidence.”

  An angry light lit Rush’s eyes. “You had me investigated, Mr. Germaine, and you wouldn’t have called me here today if you didn’t already know the answer to that question.”

  “No offense, Henry. Mr. Daley of the Express gave you the highest recommendation. You know I own a good share of that paper.” Rush nodded. “Mr. Daley told me I could put myself completely in your hands.” He paused for a moment searching for words and Rush took another swallow of his drink. He wondered when, if ever, the point would be reached.

  Germaine finally spoke. “I must first confess an utter failure. The first of my life. On the death of my wife, fifteen years ago, I undertook the raising of my children. In that undertaking I have foiled completely.” He sighed deeply.

  “Is all this necessary, Mr. Germaine?” asked Rush. “Must you flog yourself with what must be painful history? I think I can get along well enough on present facts.”

  “No. It is necessary for you to know the background before you can understand the situation at present. You see, in the beginning, I felt that girls more or less grew of their own accord. Hence, I spent my entire energy in fitting Paul for the position he must some day occupy. He will, as my heir, have the management of a quite tremendous estate. I’m afraid I erred with Paul, too. I was too strict, too exacting in my demands on him. I tried too soon to fit him into a groove for which he had no liking. Now I face a problem with him. That, however, I must cope with myself. It is with Leslie that I need outside assistance.”

  “Now it comes,” thought Rush. “Now we get to his dear little Leslie.”

  “Until a month ago,” continued Germaine, “I thought that Leslie was growing up as any normal girl should, in her position, when I received a tremendous shock that brought me up short. On investigation, I found that things had gone much too far for ordinary measures. I learned, for instance, that it was a rare night during which her bed at home was slept in. By pressure on their parents, I gained reluctant admission from several of her friends that Leslie seldom spent her time with them and that she had been seen in the company of a type of person whose very existence should have been a mystery to an eighteen-year-old girl in her position.”

  Rush spoke before he could resume.

  “This sounds very much like a thousand other stories of the wayward daughter with too much money and too little control.”

  “As much as I wish that were true, I think not.” Germaine reached into the desk drawer behind him and brought out a sheet of heavy notepaper folded twice. He tossed it across to Rush. “This, I think, will explain. It was that piece of paper that brought me up short, a month ago.”

  Rush unfolded the paper and read:

  Germaine:

  Get your daughter out of my hair. She has been hanging around here for six months getting in my customers’ way. She hints that she might like to work for them once in a while. You know she can’t do that, and besides the little devil scares me. Call her off.

  Markio

  Rush placed the note back on the table and picked up his drink. He took a long swallow and let it hit bottom before he looked up. The cold blue eyes were gazing steadily at him. Rush looked at the note and there was a question in his eyes.

  “Yes,” Germaine, “I have known Markio for a great many years. I have occasionally had business with some of his customers. I haven’t seen him personally, however, for many years.”

  “This does make it a little different,” Rush said. “What, exactly, do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to find out where she goes and whom she sees. It is possible that she has found someone less scrupulous than Markio. I want you to find out. -When you learn everything, I want you to buy or frighten every wretched one of them into having absolutely nothing to do with Leslie.”

  “That,” Rush said, “is a large order. It may be too large to be filled. You know, of course, that in effect you are asking for the privilege of paying blackmail?”

  “Of course.”

  “And how do you expect to handle Leslie
when I have done my end of the job?”

  “I think that an iron hand minus the velvet glove will handle the situation, once you get your end taken care of.”

  Rush didn’t think so. He thought a psychoanalysis was indicated, but he was being paid for something else so he kept still. He gulped the final swallow of his drink.

  “Is there something else you’d like to know before you begin?”

  “No,” said Rush, “but there is something I’d like to do before I leave.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’d like to search her room.”

  “For what?”

  “For anything I can find that will give me something to go on.”

  “I’ll take you there now.”

  They climbed a winding staircase to a long hall. Leslie’s door stood slightly ajar and Germaine threw it open.

  “There. I’d rather not come in, if you don’t mind.”

  “Okay,” said Rush. “I’ll come by your study on my way out.”

  “I’ll have a check for you.”

  Germaine left Rush to his search. He began it methodically. Not the kind of search that leaves a litter of torn upholstery and rumpled drawers. Rather he stood quietly in the center of the room for a long while, just looking around. At first glance it was an ordinary room, such as any girl of eighteen might have. Rush opened his pores and sucked up the atmosphere of the room, all senses alert. Then the room changed. A feint sensuous perfume rose to his nostrils. He took a step to a bookcase beside the bed and read the titles, Krafft-Ebing, Courtney Riley Cooper’s Here’s to Crime, several volumes of Freud, and a well worn, poorly printed, paper bound collection of Studies in Criminal Psychology. Now where in the hell had an eighteen-year-old girl gotten that collection of books, and why? He went to the chest and pulled out drawers. Lingerie, blouses, hosiery, jewelry, nothing else. The desk gave him nothing but a sheaf of photographs. Leslie swimming, Leslie riding, Leslie playing golf. He noted a surprisingly voluptuous figure for her age and a slightly vicious look about the face. She didn’t look like a happy person. Slipping one of each into his pocket, Rush went on to the bathroom adjoining. Behind the usual beauty aids in the cabinet set in one wall he found a bright metal and glass hypodermic needle. He hesitated for a moment, then put it back. He went back to the bedroom and stood for a moment. He took a deep breath and the perfume of the room rose thickly to his nostrils. Its effect was glandular rather than olfactory.

  Germaine was waiting for him in the study, check in hand.

  “Will that be enough for a retainer?”

  Rush looked no further than the three zeros with the ‘one’ before them in the corner of the slip of paper.

  “That will carry me for a while,” he said. “I’ll have an itemized account at the end.”

  “I’ve been thinking of the end, Henry. As an added incentive to reaching that end, I’ll give you a thousand dollars for every day under ten that you take for the completion of the assignment.”

  “Fair enough,” Rush said, and turned to go.

  “One more thing, Henry.” Rush turned back. “Expense has no bearing on your conduct of this case. I have a great deal of money and I’ll spend all of it, if necessary, to accomplish what I have set out to do. My money won’t be of much value to me if—“ His voice trailed off and for a moment Rush saw a tired, frightened old man before him. Then Germaine regained his poise. “That will be all, Henry. All, until you have a final report. Call on me for any money you need.”

  “Right,” said Rush, and left.

  The sunshine was bright on the North Side as Rush walked down the long driveway. A fresh breeze from the lake had sprung up since he entered that driveway earlier in the morning, and its coolness was a caress on his forehead. At the large, wrought iron gateway he turned left and headed for the Outer Drive, intent on hailing a bus for the Loop. Then he remembered the check in his pocket and grinned. He hailed a passing cab and leaned back against the leather seat.

  “The Express building,” he said.

  2

  The Express was still home to Rush. There he had learned the newspaper business. There Michael Christian Daley, the editor of the paper, had discovered and developed Rush’s peculiar ability to find the truth in a tangled web of mystery. He had stood just off-stage during two crises in Rush’s life [The Payoff and The Third Degree]. When Rush had received his discharge from G-2, Military Intelligence, Daley was the first to refuse Rush a job. He had a good reason.

  “The most I can possibly pay you is peanuts to what you could make on your own as a private investigator. You’ve got the stuff and the reputation. I, personally, can throw you enough business to keep you in sirloin steaks. You’re young, with a long future ahead of you. That piece of silver in your shoulder may make you unfit for military service, but I’ll still take you in a fight. You’ve got the contacts in this town to get anything you want.”

  Rush had scratched the shoulder which now was riveted with a silver plate, the aftermath of a chance shot in a routine investigation for G-2. He had also scratched his head and had finally agreed with Daley. Now he was on his way back to him for background.

  The cab drew up in front of the Express building and he ran up the steps, through the reception hall, and knocked on a door bearing the one word—EDITOR.

  “Come in,” shouted a muffled voice through the door.

  Rush opened the door and walked in. He tossed his hat on the desk and sat down before it. He cocked his feet on the desk and lit a cigarette.

  “Hi, Pappy,” he said to the baldish man with the childlike face and the ancient eyes who sat behind the desk watching him with a calculating smile.

  “Don’t ask me, Rush,” he said. “I don’t know. I don’t know a damn thing. The old boy asked me for advice and I sent him to you. He probably told you all he knew and that’s all I know.”

  “I don’t know whether to thank you or not,” said Rush.

  “Why the hell not?” asked Pappy. “You’ll make a small fortune out of it.”

  “I know,” said Rush. “The money’s fine but I itch the wrong way. There’s something else coming. I don’t think I like this at all.”

  “You’ll like it fine when he pays off.”

  “Yeah, that’ll be fine. Now all I have to do is get the job done. Don’t you know anything, Pappy?”

  “Not a thing that you don’t. The morgue’s got a lot of stuff on the family. You can look it up but it won’t tell you much.”

  “Okay,” Rush heaved his six feet of lean strength to his feet. “I’ve got to get something going. There’s a couple of leads I’ll have to run down to start with. After that I’m on my own.”

  “Yes,” said Pappy Daley, “you certainly are.”

  Rush decided to pass up the morgue for the time being and caught another cab giving his destination as Barney’s.

  The heat of the Loop struck him full blast as he got out of the cab in front of a small café. Inside, Barney’s was a pool of coolness and he stopped at the bar for a quick one.

  “Hi ya, Rush,” said Barney from behind the bar. “What’s for you?”

  “The same, Barney.” Barney set a bottle of rye on the bar with a double shot glass. “Have you seen Merwin today?” Rush asked.

  “He was in a while ago but he ducked out to make a bet on the first at Empire.”

  “I’m going back to a booth and take it easy for a minute or two. Send me back a ham on rye, and if Merwin comes in, send him back.”

  “Okay, Rush. You in, if anybody should ask?”

  “Find out who it is first, Barney.”

  “Right.”

  Rush took the drink back to a booth and sat nursing it till his sandwich came. A few minutes before, he had told Pappy Daley that he didn’t like this job. Rush liked to enjoy his work. This time nobody seemed to be enjoying it. It wasn’t any fun for the old man, and while the girl seemed to be having one hell of a time, he wasn’t sure about her either. Rush was a student of his fellow men and had
bolstered his innate knowledge with books involving the intricate ways of minds edging into the abnormal. In the room he had visited earlier he had sensed an urgent compulsion. Rush was quite sure that anyone who tried so hard to sin must get very little pleasure from the result. Then he thought of the thousand-dollar check in his pocket and he felt better. He compromised, with a promise to himself to urge a competent analysis for Leslie Germaine when he had done his job. His reverie was broken by a whiskey tenor whisper at his shoulder.

  “I got a cinch in the fifth today, Rush.”

  “Where?” Rush asked.

  “Empire.”

  “Okay, what’s the goat called?”

  “Fair Folly.”

  “I’ll look her up on the scratch sheet.”

  “Okay, Rush, and—”

  “Yeah, I’ll put a couple on for you if I bet.”

  “Thanks, Rush.” The voice hided away and Rush’s sandwich came.

  “Charley said to tell you the boys was playing at the club tonight,” said Barney. “Wanted to know if you’d sit in.”

  “I can’t tell yet, Barney. I may be busy tonight. Tell him not to count on it.”

  “I’ll tell him, Rush.” Barney turned back to the bar. “Here comes Merwin now,” he called back over his shoulder.

  “Send him back,” Rush said.

  A moment later, a nondescript figure materialized in the booth, opposite Rush. It had a fishbowl of beer in its hand. First the booth was empty, then Merwin was there. It was a nice trick.

  “Got something for me, Rush, eh?” Merwin asked, in a voice somewhat between a stage whisper and a hoarse shout. In his youth Merwin had been a boxer in a tough league and his Adam’s apple had taken so many beatings from weighted gloves that he could only whisper. This, combined with the feet that his ears continually rang, made Merwin force his naturally lush whisper so that he could hear it himself. A certain low cunning, a wide friendship in esoteric quarters, a close tongue and a terrifying loyalty to Rush made him invaluable.

  “Eh, Rush, you got somethin’?”

  “May have, Merwin. But keep your voice down.